


The Good Sister

by watch_out_for_skyrats



Category: The Owl House (Cartoon)
Genre: Family Feels, Light Character Study, canon complaint, scenes surrounding season one finale, some Lilith redemption arc fleshing out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:27:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26261125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watch_out_for_skyrats/pseuds/watch_out_for_skyrats
Summary: Lilith has lived her whole life with the reputation as the good sister.  The well-behaved sister.  The benefit to all of society sister.  Why is she now thinking those might not always be the same thing?In-between scenes during/after the season one finale.  Kind of a character study.
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s)
Comments: 21
Kudos: 131





	1. Agony of a Human

**Author's Note:**

> I've wanted to write something for The Owl House for awhile now. Then the season one finale absolutely wrecked me and I started on this and it sort of took over.  
> Part one takes place during Episode 18. I tried to keep it canon compliant as much as possible, but a always might have forgotten something.

If Lilith listed the main things Edalyn's little pet had in common with her sister, they would go as follows:

One. An over-inflated, egotistical, misplaced self confidence.

Two. A reckless disregard for the rest of society.

And three. A stubborn refusal to know when to quit.

To her great annoyance, Lilith had so far been distracted from her post at the castle gates to attend to her captive _twice_. Once because she managed, and Lilith had no earthly clue _how_ exactly, to burn a sizable hole through the door of her cell and escape. She evaded the guards for nearly ten minutes until Lilith found her attempting to pry the grate over an air vent open with a charred beam of wood. She dragged her back to the castle dungeons listening to complaints of wood splinters the entire trip.

The second time, Kikimora had called her in near hysterics that a particularly gangly guard had run out of the costuming wing and stolen her notepad. Lilith had slipped on a patch of ice in pursuit and collided with another guard. Luckily, the human was just close enough for a stun spell and Lilith was able to levitate her back to captivity. The notepad had been confiscated and Lilith sealed the human in a spell bubble instead of bothering with another cell.

When Lilith had been called back for a _third_ time, she was so annoyed she would have punched a hole through the roof.

"Tell me if I understand correctly," she said in a low, cool voice to the two prison guards she'd put in charge of the prisoner. "You summoned me away from the imminent arrival, duel, and capture of my rogue sister, the culmination of _months_ of active investigation and labor for which I will need _all_ my focus and attention… because the prisoner _won't shut up?_ " The last three words were accompanied with mock quotation marks courtesy of her index fingers.

The sharp nose on the guard's masks tipped down towards the ground. "It's not just that, ma'am."

"The prisoner demands to use the… um, _facilities,_ " the other said sheepishly.

"And this is a challenge that the Emperor's Guard, the very symbol of magical force, strength, and discipline in all the Boiling Isles, is not up to."

The guard coughed delicately. "Well… we use the boy's room… and the prisoner…"

"Uuuugghhh,". Lilith raked her nails over her forehead. "Never mind. I'll do it." She shoved herself forward, in between the two masked sentries. "But I must be informed the _instant_ my sister arrives!"

She left her post at the castle gates and reappeared in the dungeon in a burst of blue energy. Honestly, what was the use of having underlings if you still had to do the banal, meaningless tasks on top of everything else? If they caused her to miss her deadline...

She didn't even want to think of what would befall her then.

The human was indeed making something of a fuss. She was banging incessantly on the confines of the bubble with her hands and shouting something about civil liberties. Lilith had appeared from the opposite side of the room and waited a beat to see if the human would pause long enough to take a breath.

"And I may not have taken any law classes yet, but in the human world this is considered kidnapping, false arrest, and… and cruel and unusual punishment…" the human ranted even though, to her knowledge, no one else was in the room to hear.

Lilith decided she was wasting time and cleared her throat as loud as she could. The girl startled, twisting around with skinny, flailing limbs in her gravity neutral bubble until she faced the opposite direction.

"I need to go to the bathroom," she said simply.

"I heard."

* * *

The castle's public bathroom was the only facility with multiple stalls, so that was the destination for Lilith and her human prisoner. She didn't know if the human was capable of another escape attempt from a toilet and this was in reality all just a ruse, so a single stalled bathroom was out of the question. When they both were inside, Lilith removed the human from the bubble spell and positioned it over the front door of the bathroom, like a forcefield. She then gestured to the first stall.

"I can go to the bathroom by myself, you know," the human complained. "In fact, I'd prefer it."

"I will _not_ have another foolhardy escape attempt from you. Don't worry, you'll have your privacy. But I will not leave the room." Lilith crossed her arms.

"But then you'll," the human winced, " _hear_ things…"

Lilith groaned. "Don't be so immature. Besides, you should've thought of that before you broke in to the Emperor's headquarters to steal…" Lilith mentally checked that off as yet another thing her and Edalyn had in common.

The human child gave a defeated sigh and reluctantly marched herself into the stall. "I didn't break in, I was on a class trip," she explained. "And I was going to bring the hat back, _I swear!_ " The stall door clanged shut and latched. "I thought I could use it to heal Eda."

"Well, if that was your goal, you are closer to accomplishing it now than you would be even if you had successfully gotten the hat."

"Wait, _what?_ What are you talking about?"

"Not that it concerns you," Lilith said, hoping she'd take the hint and stop asking so many questions. Having a conversation across the door of a toilet stall was not how she wanted to spend the last hour of her rapidly approaching deadline. "But I do want to see my sister free from her curse. It probably could've been dealt with a while ago if she had accepted my help instead of her wild, selfish rebel fantasy. She's just too stubborn and prideful..."

There was a rustling noise from inside the cell and then she awkwardly asked, "Can't you… I don't know, cover your ears…"

"Human, this is just as embarrassing for me as it is for you. Just do your business so we can leave…"

The human was quiet for a little bit, followed by the tell tale sound of the intended business getting done. For some odd reason, the human didn't feel the need to end the conversation, though. "Are you _sure_ you're helping Eda?" she asked in a loud voice, perhaps hoping to cover the other noises.

" _What?_ "

"I mean, I'm like your hostage, right? It's not really _helping_ when you have to take someone they care about hostage in order for a person to listen to you. I mean, what if Eda did that to Amity just cause she's your student? She wouldn't, she actually likes Amity now, at least I think she does. But you get what I mean..."

"I don't expect you to understand…" Lilith sighed.

"And I know Eda can be kinda arrogant, but she isn't selfish or whatever," the girl prattled on. "Not with important stuff, anyway. She absolutely _hates_ Hexside but I really wanted to go and eventually she listened. She worked hard to get me a chance to go there just because it was important to me. Now, she goes there all the time, she helps me with my homework. She even chaperoned our dance."

"Edalyn _chaperoned?_ " The thought of her rebellious sister standing in the Hexide gym in business casual, instructing teenagers to properly space themselves while they danced was laughable. Bump must've lost his mind.

"Yeah, that was a crazy night. We fought Grom together, not me and Eda, me and Amity. I guess Amity probably told you about that already, though."

Truthfully, Lilith hadn't seen her pupil in awhile. Their meetings were interrupted with Amity's injury and Lilith had become preoccupied with catching Edalyn. They had only met up for lessons weekly anyway.

"Maybe if you just _asked_ Eda why she can't join your coven it would make sense," the human continued. "She isn't refusing just out of selfishness."

As much as Lilith considered herself above being riled up by a human, she nevertheless could feel her cheeks going red and uncomfortable. "Aren't you _finished?_ Or are you trying to stall?"

"I'm not stalling, I'm in a stall," the human chuckled.

"If you are trying to delay me in my encounter with my sister, it will not work, I assure you."

"I'm not _delaying_. You can't rush nature, lady."

Lilith ground her teeth together. "Just… _try_ to hurry this along. If I'm not there when Edalyn arrives…"

"What _are_ you going to do when Eda gets here?" The girl interrupted, sounding apprehensive.

"I beg your pardon?" What nerve did this child have that she thought she could be privy to all this information while as a prisoner in a world she didn't even belong to.

"I mean, I know Eda," the girl said matter-of-factly, "and Eda is gonna _blow the roof_ when she gets here."

"I am prepared to fight whatever my sister can dish out," Lilith said, thoroughly calm.

" _Wait…_ " there was a shuffle noise and then the toilet flushed. "Wait a second, wait.." A half second later the stall door violently swung open with a loud bang. "You're going to _fight?!_ " The human exclaimed with wild, huge eyes.

"Yes, that's why I sent the witchlings with my staff. It's the traditional call to challenge another to a witch's duel." Lilith thought her patient explanation was perfectly clear, even to an outsider, but it only made the human more agitated.

"No, Lilith, you _can't_ duel Eda right now, trust me."

"You are in no position to make commands, _human,"_ Lilith recoiled. "And you should wash your hands."

The human ignored her, stepping forward with every step backwards that Lilith took. "Please, _please_ listen to me. Eda's curse has gotten so much worse. The elixir isn't working anymore. And Eda says if she uses up her magic, she could turn into the owl beast and she won't turn back. Maybe for forever."

This was certainly news to Lilith. Her sister was worse off than she imagined. Weakened, even.

"So… she really is running out of time…"

" _Yes,_ " the human clasped her hands together. "Please, promise you won't duel her. You can talk this out. I can help you…"

"I can finish this tonight…" Lilith said, mostly to herself. "I just have to wear her out…"

"No, Lilith, _listen to me!"_

"No, you listen. I know what's best for my sister," Lilith flicked her wrist and the tiles on the bathroom floor lifted and rolled. The human was sent stumbling forward to catch herself on the bathroom counter. "You are wasting my time, human. I don't become more agreeable with people that waste my time."

She whirled around, fixed a deep glare at Lilith in complete contrast to the grand display of begging just moments before. " _What's wrong with you?"_ she shouted. "She's your _sister!_ Why would you want your _own sister_ to be _cursed forever?"_

"I _don't_ ," Lilith took a deep breath, processing letting go of her frustration and allowing her composure to return and her voice to get soft. "I know it must seem harsh," Lilith said kindly, "But sometimes pain in the present is necessary for the betterment of the future. It's really a _good_ thing. Edalyn _needs_ this. She needs this coven and she needs me."

" _Does she?"_ The human balled her hands into fists. "When I met Eda she didn't even know what _hugs_ were. That's like… illegal where I'm from."

Lilith was honestly a little lost by that comment. It felt like a deep accusation but the specifics were utterly lost on her.

"It sounds to me like you'd be a lot happier back where you came from, if that's the case."

Shockingly, the human had nothing to say to that.

"Now, I need to be waiting when my sister arrives." Lilith drew a large circle in the air. It glowed blue for a split second and then another bubble hovered in the air between captor and captive. "I'm going to give you thirty seconds and we are _leaving_ , whether your hands are washed or not."

The human briefly glanced back at the sink, then again at Lilith. Her brow furrowed. She then straightened. Her round chin jutted into the air and her foot made a stamping noise on the floor. "Well, I _refuse_ to wash until you promise not to duel Eda."

Lilith was incredulous. "That's got to be the _worst_ threat I've ever heard in my life." Lilith thrust the bubble at the girl, swallowing her inside it in a mere instant. She yelped and flailed at the sudden weightlessness. But she had just enough time to grab the sink with one hand before the bubble carried her away.

"Okay, _okay_ , I'm washing," she said bitterly.


	2. Lilith's Errand

Lilith was still in shock when Emperor Belos handed her the owl staff. For a long while she didn't even move.

Belos _lied_ to her.

She had been so ready for this lifelong nightmare to finally be over. And now the only thing rolling over in her mind on loop were the two words that rendered all her efforts worthless.

_Belos lied._

If there was anyone in the coven that deserved a kept promise, surely it would be her... She'd trusted the emperor implicitly. She never questioned his leadership. She'd dedicated her life to his cause. And he would not give her the one thing he promised her, one that he was perfectly capable of doing and now would not just… _because…_

He wasn't gaining anything by executing Edalyn. A little intimidation was nothing in comparison to what they could've accomplished working _with_ her. But he wasn't even going to try.

He'd never had any _intention_ of trying.

Lilith was pulled out of her reverie when she realized she was clutching the staff so hard her nails had dug into her palm. She looked down at the carefully carved wood, the lines defining the now lifeless owl figure. The rough beginnings of an improvised plan began to form in her mind.

* * *

Lilith had to transport outside the castle walls in order to stash the owl palisman safely. She could never be sure if or when Belos was watching. The next step was riskier, but even if she ended up getting caught, at least that staff, that last piece of her sister, would still exist.

The nearest potions factory was about a twenty minute flight from the emperor's fortress. She knew the facility fairly well. Many of Hexide's potion track graduates ended up in that lab. She would arrive with a few hours of night left before workers began arriving for the day.

While in flight, Lilith mentally wracked her brain for a plausible story for being there if she ran into anyone. Surprise inspection, maybe? ...In the middle of the night? Her role in the coven gave her that kind of power, but who would believe the timing? No, she needed to make this a stealth operation in every way. Get in and out without being seen by anyone, and get back to the castle before anything happened to Edalyn.

This meant she absolutely could not be spotted by the facility's security system. In addition to the guard in charge of the front gate, the surrounding perimeter was lined with eyes that would no doubt sound the alarm if they caught anyone sneaking around. She could try blinding them, which was well within her considerable abilities. But that would surely get a legion of guards there in under five minutes and she needed more time.

Luckily, Lilith was aware of the plant's weak spot. The company running the potion lab won a partnership with the Emperor's Coven over thirty years ago, which resulted in the facility expanding exponentially to one of the most profitable on the Boiling Isles. Before that time, the lab had been largely devoted to experimental potions. After the coven partnership, they converted the facility to mass producing oil of vitriol almost exclusively. They were now the biggest vitriol export on the Boiling Isles, making materials that had broad, practical uses as fertilizers and cleaners. What equipment that couldn't be used for distilling vitriol was gathered up into a small research and development wing and stuffed into a stone bunker, still on the factory lot but separate from the main building.

The last time Lilith visited, the wing had been severely understaffed, almost no internal security apart from the odd eyecam in a ceiling corner. All she had to do was get past the main gate, navigate to the bunker, and gouge out the eyecams before they had time to record her. Simple enough.

Lilith landed on a hill overlooking the factory, just outside the range of the watchful gate eyecams. She removed her cloak and hung it on the top of her staff, opened up a small portal and stashed the two away together with the owl staff for safekeeping. Then she took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

This was going to take all her, quite considerable, concentration and memory.

To an outside observer, Lilith would appear to be a lone witch standing in a calm, meditative state for about half a minute. Then, she would appear to melt.

First, the bottom of her dress started to pool like an upset bottle of ink. Then the rest of her form greyed out and liquified, still holding its shape like a tower of liquid mercury. She sunk into the ground, slowly at first, then all at once. The soil percolated the material down through layers of dirt and rock to the subsoil. The puddle of liquid Lilith then glowed blue. She poured herself forward, subsoil opening a path in front of her and then closing the makeshift tunnel behind, as if she was never there.

Very few witches could manage this method of travel. She had to concentrate to keep from losing any of her own matter in the underground and then blindly navigate to her destination. She had to remember the layout of the potions lab in excruciating detail to make sure she didn't come up in a more vulnerable spot. That was the hardest part.

Feeling she had finally arrived under the bunker floor, Lilith collected herself, drawing all her energy up to the surface. She burst through the stone floor like a kind of metallic lava. Two silver-grey tentacles stretched from the liquid matter and each shot a powerful burst of flaming blue energy, one towards the southeast corner and the other towards the northwest. A millisecond later, the tendrils shifted back into arms and Lilith's normal form was restored.

She collapsed to her knees on the stone floor, took a moment just to breathe and collect herself. She finally dared to glance up, first at the southeast corner of the room, then again at the northwest. Each had a smoking, charred spot. The burnt, twisted remnants of an eyecam hung from a bolt in each wall.

Lilith sighed in relief.

She could usually see fairly well in the dark, especially after she'd gotten her eyes fixed, but the room had no windows and the smallest possible gap under its single door. She would need at least some light. She ignited the tiniest light spell that she dared, in case some random employee happened to be walking past outside, and took stock of her surroundings.

The vast majority of the bunker's floorspace was devoted to a claustrophobic amount of shelving units. The aisles between each unit was narrow, only allowing just enough room to walk between them without tripping over the decades old equipment. And all were filled from the floor to the ceiling. Luckily, someone had thought to meticulously label every shelf with a label maker. Unluckily, there was little rhyme or reason to what went where throughout the bunker. Instead of grouping the raw materials based on origin or inherent properties or uses, everything was scattered about at random and the shelves labeled in a grid formation with runes and numbers, like a library.

Lilith found the inventory list in the form of a dusty tome left open on a rolling podium unit. The thing smelled of sulfur and old paper, a layer of dust accumulated on the page some employee had turned to and left open however long ago. She flipped through the pages, feeling a little silly, like an ancient alchemist with a mile long beard, pouring over a text in the dim light. She expected most of the ingredients she needed would be in here somewhere, but if they didn't have the right active ingredient this whole errand would be pointless. She scanned the pages until her finger landed on aconitum, shelving unit B12. According to the record, there was one jar left.

She dug through the corresponding shelf, dropping boxes on the floor without bothering to read their contents. Her hand finally closed around the right jar. A couple sprigs of hermetically preserved purple flower tucked away inside. She only hoped it would be enough.

The electric mortar, which they had stored by wedging it sideways on one shelf to save room, fortunately still worked. She set the aconitum to be crushed up while she moved through the bunker for the rest of the ingredients. She had the recipe memorized by heart. Two parts aconitum essence to one part liquid gold. Since she only had a matter of hours, she would need some kind of accelerant as well. Normally, it would take weeks to cure.

While the mortar hummed along, she cross referenced the inventory list with shelves until, one by one until she had all her ingredients assembled. The jug of elixir grade alcohol they had looked dusty and old, but at least the contents would never spoil. The jar of elvish cave honey she found was also harder and waxier than desirable, but some time in a hot cauldron would melt it into being malleable. Last to find was the liquid gold.

Liquid gold was activated by mixing two separate parts of a solution into one container, the reaction creating an explosive yellow, gold color, hence the name. They were usually packaged as a set, with parts A and B in separate vials. The inventory list had 5 large boxes of them recorded, but when Lilith climbed up the ladder on unit Q20 to search the corresponding shelf, she was met with an empty space instead.

"No," Lilith gasped audibly. Dust had clustered on the shelf around large rectangles, betraying where each of the boxes once stood. Her heart froze. "No, it has to be here. It has to!" she smashed her fist on the shelf. The old wood groaned like it was threatening to buckle.

She would _annihilate_ whoever took these. They'd wish they'd never been _born!_

"Who goes there?" a voice sounded from outside the door. Lilith's heart jumped to life.

The bunker door flew open. The cracking sound of glass breaking was her only warning against the giant cloud of smoke that filled the room. She leaped off of the ladder, drawing her own magic around herself, both to break her fall and shield her from whatever spell had been laced into the smoke. What gave her away? Was it the light? The noise? How many witches had just discovered her? More importantly, how soon would they report it?

Lilith squinted her eyes into the rolling clouds until she came up with the shadow of a solitary person. Whoever it was, apparently they weren't smart enough to strike when they had her at a disadvantage. Taking a split second to retrieve her staff, she cast a large circle into the air that sucked in the fog and shot it back out again at a high velocity. Her attacker was hit square in the chest and flung backwards, smacking helpless against the wall.

The blast sent nearly everything on the nearby shelves crashing to the floor. The distance between Lilith and whoever just discovered her was covered with tipped boxes, reams of loose parchment, and broken glass. Lilith crossed the distance slowly, her staff held out in front in a defensive position. The figure had fallen to the ground and was now struggling to rise. Curiously, they were also drenched from head to foot. Glancing down she noticed an overturned bucket at their feet and a mop with a handle broken in half. Lilith cast a rope spell around the gangly set of arms and drew them forward.

The witch had a high pitched, wailing yelp at being pulled along. When he finally got close enough, Lilith could see he was dressed entirely in pristine white, except for a bright yellow pouch hung on his belt. Behind a dripping fringe of light brown hair, his eyes were widened in shock. His name tag read "Miles".

"A janitor…" Lilith sighed.

"Mmmhmm," Miles nodded aggressively. He couldn't be older than twenty.

"You know who I am?" She asked. Another violent nod.

"Who else is here?"

"Just me…" he squeaked. "Well, there's two other guys that do the offices and the main building. I'm new, so…"

"I don't really need backstory, just, where are they? Will they come here?"

"They've all gone home by now."

"I see. Do the security guards know about this?"

He shook his head aggressively in the negative. "They only come if an alarm goes off," he continued to stare wide-eyed at Lilith.

"Are we failing an inspection right now?"

Lilith couldn't believe her luck.

"As a matter of fact," she released the binding spell, setting the boy on his feet. He looked down, unnerved at the awful crunch under his shoes when he landed.

"I am terribly disturbed by what I have found here," Lilith said, now fully composed. "Come, perhaps you can clear this up for me."

Miles gulped audibly.

She showed him the inventory log. "Look here, how many boxes of liquid gold are listed?"

"Um… five."

"So if I go to this shelf," she pointed at the marking, "I should find five boxes readily available."

Miles stared unblinking at the writing on the page. "Makes sense," he said simply.

"Then let's find out. Shall we?" Lilith turned and marched back towards the scene of destruction.

Miles lagged behind, diverting entirely when he noticed the mortar was still running. He leaned forward, looking at the purple powder being ground up inside. He shut the machine off. "Were you going to brew something?" he asked in a small, tentative voice.

"Don't touch that!" Lilith ordered.

Miles scrambled forward to catch up with her.

"You know, I'm just a cleaner, ma'am. I don't have any business with the inventory."

Lilith glanced sidelong at him. "No? I suppose you only come by to clean."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Was that why you came here now?"

"Yes, exactly."

Lilith stopped short. She drew her finger over the edge of a shelf, menacingly slow. A glob of dust collected and dropped from her finger in slow motion.

Miles watched it fall in terror.

Lilith shot forward. She grabbed Miles roughly by the collar of his cheap, and still quite damp, mass produced white janitorial uniform.

"How about you quit with the deception, Miles," she seethed.

Miles cried out, holding his hands up, "Please, I don't know what you're talking…"

" _No one_ cleans in here," She wrung the fabric. "There's dust everywhere. Look at this shelf, Miles," she thrust his nose at the empty space where her ingredients should have been. "What were you _really_ doing here?"

"Just...just mopping, honest."

"Have you been taking things out of this facility? Have you been smuggling?"

"I haven't, I swear…"

"You know what the penalty is…"

"Please… look, look, maybe we can work something out...I can get you your elixir…"

Lilith paused but did not loosen her grip.

"The aconitum elixir you're making... in secret, alone in the middle of the night where no one will find you…"

"I don't like your tone…"

"Hey, hey, it's none of my business why you want it. I'm just saying I can get it for you."

Lilith narrowed her eyes. "You know where I can get the liquid gold."

"Better, I can get you the whole elixir. Brewed, cured, ready to go. I can get you a dozen if you want."

"How do you know…?"

"I was in potions track in school, my whole family is. Liquid gold's pretty much obsolete but it's the only thing that works on a magic bile dysfunction. And if you're combining it with aconitum it must be a transformation curse, probably a nasty one. Am I right?"

Lilith didn't like how quickly he lapsed out of his fear of her. She couldn't count him out as a complete idiot, either. He knew she was here in secret and what's more, he knew exactly what she was after. Either one of those facts would mean expulsion from the coven for her if they got back to the Emperor.

"Alright, Miles, I'm feeling generous today," she loosened her grip on his collar, looked down distastefully at her moist palms, and proceeded to wipe them on her skirt with as much decorum as possible. "Get me what I need and I'll let the missing inventory slide. No one has to know about this."

"Great," Miles let out a huge sigh of relief, absently rubbing his neck. "I can go as soon as my shift is over…"

"Now!"

"Or now, I can go now."

* * *

The owl beast was already chained up when Lilith slipped into the antechamber. She was laying down, motionless, face turned away from the door. Her neck and legs were fastened to the platform on short chains, but mercifully, her arms looked unhindered. Lilith approached slowly, her guard up, not sure what other curve balls this day was going to throw at her. Miles' promised flask of elixir was clutched in her hand.

"I'd go away if I were you..." Edalyn's voice sounded before Lilith had even gotten that close.

Lilith stopped. At least Edalyn's mind was still intact. "It's me," she paused, completely at a loss of what to say. "I've come to help…"

"I've had _more than enough_ of your help, thanks," Edalyn shot back.

"You have every right to be angry with me," Lilith continued on, crossing the few feet between her and the execution platform. "But, I promise, I'm going to fix things." She knelt on the floor, facing the creature her sister had become. She uncorked the flask and held it out. "Here, drink this."

Edalyn looked stunned, an effect magnified now that her normally large eyes were all the more huge. She stared at the offered flask, then back to Lilith.

"Quickly," she urged. "I can't break the locks, but if you change form…"

Lilith was cut off mid sentence by a low, eerie chuckle. Edalyn's head ducked, her shoulders shook, feathers vibrating.

"Edalyn…?"

What started as a chuckle erupted into a full blown cackle. The owl beast's head threw back, her eyes clamped shut, fangs exposed.

" _Edalyn, shhh, someone will hear you!_ "

It had been a long time since Lilith had ever felt so afraid. Not only the dread that someone would walk in any minute. Edalyn's voice petrified her. For a laugh, it was utterly joyless, far from how Edalyn normally chortled or snorted over things she found funny. This was maniacal and loud, all the more terrifying with those rows of fangs. Her sister was losing her mind.

"Would you cooperate just this _once_ , Edalyn!" her voice was raising much too loud to be covert, but she couldn't help it. "They're going _to kill you_."

"That stuff is useless," Edalyn sputtered. A chill fell over Lilith. "It doesn't work anymore."

"It- it has to." _The human couldn't have been correct…_

"We could," Lilith's mind spun, "we could hide you, somehow. An illusion spell… There has to be something…"

Edalyn's cackling all at once shifted into shriek. Her eyes turned inky black. Lilith had just enough presence of mind to dodge as the creature took a hard and immediate swipe at her with a clawed hand.

For a while, Lilith could only stare.

There was no fixing this.

If her chances of getting her sister out without anyone knowing were slim before, it was impossible now. She couldn't even get her to stay calm for five minutes.

Lilith jumped to her feet. "You could've at least _tried_ the elixir," she shouted.

The beast shrieked in response.

"I know what I did was wrong, but I'm trying to fix it, the _least_ you could do was accept my help. But no! Always have to do things _your_ way. Too good for the covens, for school, for family… No, your freedom's more important than _that!_ You got to have your independence! Well how's that turned out for you? How do you like your freedom now?"

The chain around the creature's neck stretched taught as Edalyn fought. She growled and clawed uselessly in the air in Lilith's direction.

_Are you sure you're helping…?_

The thought crept in, sudden and unwanted.

_What have you done that's been of any help? You won't even admit to the damage you caused._

Still clutching the flask like a vice, and Edalyn still shrieking painfully at her, Lilith did the only thing she could think of. She fled the room.

_You'll never get the chance to apologize now._

Lilith tried to push the idea out of her mind, but it rebelled. It pushed back and repeated, louder and louder until it was practically ringing in her ears.

_You never apologized…_


	3. Vision of a Future

Lilith stepped back as the human, Luz, ran up to Edalyn and threw her arms around her middle. The little cat demon was not far behind. Without missing a beat, her sister repeated the curious action. The joy in her spirit was palpable. Lilith decided it would be best to stand back and not say anything. 

She felt drained. Every muscle down her back was sore and her skin stung. More than that, her energy was gone, evaporated. She could probably fall asleep just by shutting her eyes.

Was this what it was like every time Edalyn turned? She’d never thought about that before. This was a dilution spell, so it must’ve been worse. How much worse? How often did she have to go through this?

Luz produced a spell written on plain paper and Edalyn activated it. The paper curled up into a ball of warm light, sailed on its own into the night air until it became indistinguishable from the stars. The centuries old assumption that humans were incapable of magic was crumbling right before her eyes. 

When Lilith first saw the human cast that way she hadn’t thought about the implications. Now, in this moment of quiet, she found it fascinating. How did she know what to write? How did she control it the way she wanted? Clearly back at the covention Luz hadn’t had a clue what she was doing, so this skill must be brand new. In a way, it could even be considered the biggest magical breakthrough of their generation. And it was discovered by, of all people, her covenless sister and a human child.

“Alright, I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry enough to eat a whole griffin,” Edalyn broke the silence.

“Oooh! We never got to eat the me-cake,” the little demon exclaimed. Lilith wasn’t sure if she’d heard it’s name. As a group they started moving up the walk towards the Owl House.

“Hooty’s probably taken care of that by now,” Luz said, carrying the demon in her arms like a small child. “We still have some plantain left, I could make tostones…”

“No way, you set off the fire alarm last time,” Edalyn said in a tone that sounded an awful lot like scolding. “I’ve hit my limit on adrenalin fueled emergencies for one night.”

They all suddenly stopped a few feet from the Owl House door, turning slowly as if they all somehow simultaneously remembered something.

“Well, are you coming?” the little demon said, looking at Lilith.

“I…” Lilith looked down at the grass. She wasn’t sure if it would be appropriate, after all she’d done, to ask to stay. Surely it would be… very awkward to say the least.

“The woods aren’t a fun place to be at night,” Edalyn said finally. “And I’m only going to offer once, so…”

Lilith nodded, after debating her reply for a few moments she finally settled on “Thank you.”

They waited for her to catch up, only to be stopped by a long, feathery tube that obstructed their path.

“What took you guys _ so long _ ?” the house demon exclaimed in shrill falsetto.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, Hooty, but I’m  _ so glad _ to hear your annoying voice.” Eda squished the thing’s face in between her hands.

“ _ Really? _ ” he squealed, cheeks bunched up into his eyes. “Cause I can make it even  _ more  _ annoying for the occasion…”

“Yeah, I walked right into that...” Eda muttered.

“Hey! It’s Lilith!”

She winced as the owl shape shot forward at her. “ _ Hullooooo Lilith! _ Come for more  _ hoot _ !” She held up her arms in a cross formation.

“Not tonight, Hooty,” Eda said, completely calm. “Lilith is staying with us for dinner. So, you can, y’know, disarm.”

“Oh,  _ Okay _ !” Hooty followed them inside the house, snaking his flexible tube body through an open window. “I had my dessert first but I could  _ toootally  _ go for some entrées.”

Lilith was the last to enter the house. She had been in the front room once before, but she hadn’t really paid attention to her surroundings at the time. She had fully expected her sister’s living quarters to be a sty. But there wasn’t dust or dirt or trash anywhere. The place was actually fairly clean. Cluttered as ever, sure, even the walls were being used as storage space, but nothing was especially dirty. The only exception was the huge silver tray in the center, which had the remnants of melted icing and mashed up cake bits splattered over it.

Lilith glanced down, catching her reflection on the metallic tray in between the marred dessert. One colorless grey eye stared back at her. The shock of grey in her hair would take some getting used to. 

“I’ll get that,” Luz stepped just in front of Lilith to pick up the cake tray. The demon made a whimpering noise, holding a glob of cake mush like a tiny dead bird. “You okay, King?”

“Goodnight, sweet cake,” King sobbed. And then, with a very pointed look at Hooty, “We never even got to taste the funfetti!”

“Oooh, you’re right, that was rude,” Hooty leaned inside. “You should have it back,” his beak stretched and emitted a horrible gagging noise.

“No!” Luz tried to push Hooty’s beak shut with the tray.

“Hooty, no second helpings in the house!” Edalyn shouted from the kitchen.

Hooty’s beak turned down. “We’ll just make a new cake,” Luz said.

“A revenge cake!” King thrust a paw in the air. “That’s twice as sweet! And served cold!”

“Ooh, I love ice cream cake,” Luz patted the demon’s head. She finally seemed to notice Lilith, still standing in the doorway, wanting nothing more than to fade into the background. She looked uncomfortable, like the next sentence would take some effort to get out. “What do you want to eat, Lilith?”

“Oh, um,” she wasn’t sure she could eat much of anything but didn’t want to be rude. “Whatever everyone else wants should be fine for me, too. I’m not picky.”

“Ha! When did that happen?” Edalyn laughed. She had been disappearing and reappearing behind the fridge door and adding to a now huge pile of food items on the table behind her.

“Were you a picky eater, Lilith?” Luz said lightly, like she was feeling out how to react to this information.

“I may have disliked a few foods…”

“Newt, peaches, crusts on bread,” Edalyn listed. “Cow eyes…”

“I’ll eat cow eyes.”

“You never liked cow eyes, you fed them to the plants when you thought no one was looking.”

Lilith could only shrug. “I like them now.”

“Well, sounds like that would be a good thing to make,” Luz chimed in. And then, much quieter, she added, “Just… y’know less eyes for me, please.” She took the cake tray into the kitchen and wedged it into the tiny sink.

“Ya need protein, kiddo.” Edalyn reached back into the fridge and pulled out a package Lilith didn’t recognize. “I’ll cook you a hamburger, how about that?”

“Well done, please.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Edalyn made a face. “As much as it hurts my soul…”

Luz laughed. Lilith had no clue why.

Without knowing what else to do, Lilith sat at the rather large kitchen table and folded her hands. The wood had a fine grain and about a thousand odd cuts and gouges in it.

Edalyn tried snapping at the stove a few times before realizing why it wasn’t working. “Luz,” she called. “Need your help with the fire.”

“Coming right up,” Luz dug into her pockets for another sheet of paper. She stuck it in the wood compartment under the stove and it lit up. It suddenly occurred to Lilth that the most qualified person in the room to magically light a fire was the human teenager.

With a pot set to boil, the house busied themselves with meal preparations. Edalyn arranged the cow eyes on a large skillet along with the disk shaped hamburger. Luz cracked handfuls of spaghetti in half and threw them in the pot of water. The small king demon scaled the fridge to the ice box and slithered inside. The momentum of the freezer door caused it to swing shut on its own, trapping him inside. Edalyn calmly reached for the handle with one hand while flipping the hamburger over with the other hand. Once the freezer was open, the demon scrambled out to the top of the appliance, clutching a tub of ice cream and venting about hypothermia.

Everyone was so used to this. It all seemed… strangely normal. 

“Can I help?” Lilith finally asked. It seemed only polite but the way everyone froze made her second guess it.

“You can cut the veggies,” Edalyn finally offered.

Lilith tried to lose herself in the blunt, repetitive act of slicing mushrooms and rutabagas into tiny bits. She hadn’t bothered to cook anything in ages. The cafeteria back at Belos’ castle worked nearly around the clock so there was no point in cooking herself. She reached for an onion and peeled of it’s skin.

Behind her Luz and Edalyn continued to move about the kitchen, chattering about ways to tell when spaghetti was done cooking and if throwing it against the wall was acceptable. King climbed down from the fridge, tub of ice cream tucked under one arm. He pushed a chair up to the table and climbed up its legs. The empty nasal cavity of his snout poked up over the lip of the table as he watched Lilith work.

“Do you think I should go to school tomorrow? After today…” Luz spoke quietly, as if she only wanted Edalyn to hear.

Lilith bit down on her lower lip unconsciously.

“I’ll call Bump in the morning. If anything we can get one of your friends to bring your homework for you.”

Luz gasped. “My friends, I forgot to call them. They’re gonna be worried…”

Edalyn snagged the teen by the hood of her cape before she could dart out of the kitchen. “Easy, kid. Dinner first. You can call them later.”

“Aww, Eda…”

“Hey, guys, I don’t think we should’ve made Lilith cut onions,” King said.

Lilith immediately froze. The bustling around the kitchen immediately stopped. She hadn’t even realized but her eyes were wet and stinging painfully. Her heart pounded with internal panic. She was  _ not  _ about to start crying. Not now. Not here.

“No, I--I’m fine.” She wiped at her face with her sleeve. “Don’t let me interrupt.”

“Hey, it’s okay,” King rested a paw on her arm. Briefly Lilith realized the little demon just might be her best ally here. “ _ I can take over! _ ” He said with manic glee.

“King, you’re crazy if you think I’m letting you have a knife,” Edalyn said.

“What? I’ll be carefull…”

And just like that, the domestic rhythm of the place rolled back into motion as if it hadn’t been interrupted.

* * *

  
  


After eating it was agreed that Lilith would stay the night. Tomorrow… Edalyn claimed to never mess with tomorrows. Luz darted up the stairs at the first opportunity, presumably to call her friends. Hooty snagged an extra plate of cow eyes and devoured it outside. King suffered from, as Edalyn termed it, a sugar crash, and fell asleep at the table. Edalyn scooped him up and took him upstairs, instructing Lilith to wait.

“You can sleep on the couch,” Edalyn emerged from upstairs wearing a purple sweatshirt and a very worn looking skirt, a thick blanket slung over her shoulder. She tossed it over the back of the larger couch in the center of her living room. “I know it looks worn out, but it’s comfy. I’ve got some night clothes around too, if you don’t mind wearing human chic.” She opened up a closet and a flood of yard sale material rolled out. She just shrugged and dug inside the pile.

Lilith sat down, feeling the slight give to the cushions. A seam had popped in one spot and stuffing was escaping. All things considered it was the best bed she could ask for. Beggars and choosers and all that.

“Oh, and be prepared to hear little scampering feet running around at like, dawn.” Edalyn continued throwing various odds and ends out of the closet. “The kid’s an early bird and she usually gets the whole house up.” She pulled out a giant onesie with a pink unicorn head for a hoodie. Edalyn checked the tag and tossed it back. “Too big.”

“You’ve been waking up at  _ dawn? _ ”

“Not…  _ exactly _ dawn,” Edalyn clarified. “But early, yeah. Luz has school now. I don’t know, I just got used to it. How do you feel about narwhals?” She tossed a pair of flannel pants decorated with cartoon narwhals at the couch.

“You’ve really changed, Edalyn.”

She paused, her arms full of old clothes and the odd stuffed animal. “I don’t know. Maybe a  _ little  _ bit… I don’t know about  _ really… _ ”

“I’m serious, Edalyn. You wake up early, you just cooked for four… five if you count the house demon. You’re actually dusting this place. You’re enforcing  _ rules _ …”

“I think of them more like nuggets of wisdom.”

“I thought you were training the human, but that doesn’t even begin to cover it. You’re… raising her. You’re like her mother.”

“So… you have a problem with that?” Edalyn momentarily paused her search to fix Lilith with a dangerous look.

“No! I’m just… I’m surprised.”

“Cause I was such a problem child, how could I be taking care of a kid?”

“That’s not what I meant…”

“Well, look at you, miss proper, goody two-shoes witch, you just kissed your career, your coven, and your entire reputation goodbye in one night. How’s that for change?”

Edalyn lifted a purple shirt out of the mess and a wicked smile spread across her face. “This is perfect.” She balled the shirt and tossed it at Lilith.

Lilith caught the shirt and fumbled at unraveling it. Across the front was a doodle of Edalyn surfing on her owl staff and the words ‘Bad Girl Coven’ written in gaudy colors. She wrinkled an eyebrow up but said nothing.

Edalyn arched her back til it gave a satisfying crack. “Well, I need sleep.” She dragged herself away from the pile, kicking odds and ends out of her path on the way to the stairs.

“Edalyn, about what I did,” Lilith kept her gaze fixed to the floor. Her stomach churned. “I know I can never make up for it but, for what it’s worth…” She glanced back. Edalyn was paused midstep, her hand on the banister. 

“I’m sorry.”

She didn’t say anything right away, staring at Lilith with her one grey eye. Finally she said, “Yeah, I know,” and disappeared up the stairs.

It took some time, but Lilith finally fell asleep, all the while fighting a nagging feeling she forgot something.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Eda was jolted awake by the sound of incessant tapping against glass. When she was conscious enough to realize the sound was both not going away and intentional, she crawled to her window and threw it open.

“Hooty, someone better be dying…”

“Lilith’s moving around downstairs, hoot.”

Eda groaned, dragged her nails across her forehead. “You’re telling me this, _ why? _ ”

“Oooh, now she’s out the back door!” Hooty exclaimed in his chipper-at-all-hours voice.

“What is she....? Ugh,” Eda scrambled out of her nest, searching the floor with bleary eyes for her slippers. 

“I can ask her to teeeaaa…?” Hooty twisted coquettishly until his head flipped upside down. Eda was already halfway out the door.

She attempted to descend the stairs while simultaneously putting on the slippers. Which inevitably caused her to slip down the last few steps, catching herself painfully on the living room floor.

“Lights would be  _ great _ , Hooty,” Eda groaned. Her night vision clearly wasn’t what it used to be. That was going to take some getting used to. Hopefully she hadn’t woken Luz or King with all the noise.

After the living room flooded with light, Eda discovered that Lilith was in fact missing from where she’d left her on the couch. Sitting in her place were the neatly folded shirt and pants combo Eda had given her for pajamas, a short note written on loose paper, and a familiar looking round bottom flask.

Eda grabbed the elixir, didn’t bother to read the note, and took off running out the back door.

She was met with a blast of cold, salty night air and the nearby roar of the ocean. 

“Lily!” she shouted.

Her back door opened up only a few short feet from a sheer cliff over the Boiling Sea. There was a path down the cliff that eventually led into Bonesborough, but it was very narrow and basically never used. The only other option that didn’t involve navigating through thick woods was the main path from the front of the Owl House. But why take the back door if that’s where she was going? With no immediate sign of where to look for her sister, Eda made a quick move for the cliffside.

It turned out to be right on the money. A little ways down the path was the black, slender shadow of her sister. She hadn’t gone that far.

Eda slowed down the closer she got to catching up with her. She hadn’t actually come up with anything to say yet. Being angry was going to take energy she did not have right now and she wasn’t even sure if she was angry anymore or just confused. It was too early. She eventually stopped, just close enough to make out Lilith’s features, but no closer.

She meant to say something along the lines of ‘what are you doing?’ but it came out as a silent but expressive shrug.

“I… I left a note,” Lilith offered. “I thought that would be easier.”

“Easier?”

“I woke up and realized,” Lilith took a breath. “My staff is still in Belos’ fortress. The human… Luz, she knocked it out of my hands at one point and I never had a chance to recover it.”

That certainly was a problem. She wasn’t exactly sure what Belos did with the palismans of wild witches, but if her sister’s expression was any clue, they weren’t being sent to a charitable foster home to be pampered. At least Lilith didn’t seem to be blaming Luz for the loss, stating it more as matter of fact. Just a bad situation that needs to be worked out.

“Lily, you can’t just go back and ask for it…”

“I know  _ that _ , give me some credit,” Lilth crossed her arms, impetuous, “I’m going to be sneaky. There’s got to be someone I can bribe to smuggle her out. A guard. The warden, maybe. He always seemed…  _ corrupt. _ ”

“Bribe-able,” Eda said simultaneously. She was about to refuse any involvement in case the warden was still hung up on dating her, but then thought better of it. Better to cross that bridge if and when she got there. Lilith’s occasional flirting with rule breaking never failed to entertain her and she wasn’t about to put a boundary on it with her palisman at stake.

“Sounds pretty improper to me, sis.” 

“Perhaps… I haven’t really figured it out yet, but something must be done, as soon as possible. I don't know how long until someone finds my palisman and once that happens the consequences will be dire.”

“You need help?”

“Thank you, but…” Lilith trailed off. “I’m afraid I’ve disrupted your household enough. This is something I should do on my own. If something happened… you’ve got a lot more to lose than I do…”

Eda didn’t know what to say to that.

When they were in school, everyone assumed that Lilith would be the sister that got her life together the way witches were supposed to. Coven. Job. Family. House. Eda had been completely uninterested in those things and she made no secret of it. And yet, somehow, she’d let them into her life one by one, in her own twisted way. Certainly not in the prescribed correct order. But she was in a place now where she kinda had all those things. And Lilith…

At least she wasn’t trapped in that coven anymore.

“Where will you go?”

“I don’t really know,” Lilith looked wistful. “For the first time in my life, I have no vision of the future for myself.”

“Divination is for chumps, anyway.”

Lilith actually smiled a little.

“Well, I’m certainly not going to tell you what to do,” Edalyn crossed the distance between them. She held out her hand, offered up the flask of elixir Lilith had left behind for her. “You should take this, though. I know where to get more and… you might need it.”

Lilith looked at the flask for a long time. Finally reached out and took it back.

“Before… if I had given you a chance to explain…” Eda said, too hesitant for her liking. “What were you going to say?”

“Before it would have been another lie,” Lilith admitted. She rolled the flask over in her hands, watching the gold liquid slosh around inside. “I’ve been telling myself a lot of lies, I think.” 

The sisters were quiet for a long time. Eda said nothing, no snide comment, no argument, no deflection, no sarcastic joke, only waited. Lilith could not meet her eyes.

“The truth is…,” she took a shaky breath. “I cared more about having my dream than I cared about you. I didn’t even earn it, I  _ hurt  _ you to get it.” She was tearing up now. “That’s why I never admitted what I’d done, to you or Mom or Dad, or anyone. That’s why I never even thought to use the sharing spell. That’s why I did Belos’ bidding for so long…I wanted everyone to know me as the best and as long as people said that’s what I was I didn’t care if it was really true.”

She choked. “And that’s not even the worst part. I actually believed that if you had just been more cooperative then I could have both my dream and my sister. That it was your fault we were separated.

“I ruined your life and then I blamed you for it.”

Eda scoffed, actually rolling her eyes. “Oh, please, Lily, don’t give yourself so much credit. Living with a curse isn’t easy or fun, but it didn’t  _ ruin my life. _ I mean, yeah, yesterday was pretty much the worst, don’t want a repeat of  _ that _ . But, I love my life. I wouldn’t trade places with anyone. Unless it was for a gag or something.”

Lilith looked down at her shoes. She put a hand on Lilith’s shoulder. There was still a feeling of incompleteness, of space between them left open. But if she wasn’t fully ready to forgive Lilith yet, she was a lot further along than a few short hours ago.

“You know where to go if you get into trouble,” she said.

Lilith looked from the owl house and back to her sister.

She nodded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone for reading and special thank you to everyone who took the time to engage with a comment/kudos. I really appreciate it. I promise my next thing will be lighter (haha!)


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